There's a trailer online for John Woo's Red Cliff and it looks amazing, really. The visuals are wonderfully rich and every shot looks epic, even with just a single character on screen.

There's been a lot said about John Woo's Red Cliff, and some of it confusing and perhaps overly negative, but the footage we've seen to date has all been impressive and suggests an epic film which will love the big screen. This trailer is no different.

The new trailer is below, although I would advise watching it a second time full screen in order to be able to see the subtitles, which when watching standard size seem overly small. However I would watch it that way to get the most of the visuals.

Oh I can't wait to see a high definition version of this Red Cliff trailer, aka Red Cliff: Part I, aka Chi bi. In the meantime here's the blurb for the film...

In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minster Cao convinced the fickle Emperor Han the only way to unite all of China was to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus began a military campaign of unprecedented scale, led by the Prime Minister, himself. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu formed an unlikely alliance. Numerous battles of strength and wit ensued, both on land and on water, eventually culminating in the battle of Red Cliff. During the battle, two thousand ships were burned, and the course of Chinese history was changed forever.

...and here's the trailer through Quiet Earth who also suggest that this might be a turning point in John Woo's career, and I think they're right. Perhaps not so much in the East, but most definitely in the West. After all if you were to say what John Woo means to you right now, you're generally going to pick one of two action films. This film looks set to change that view.